The attacks had been coming every two to three hours, he said, adding that he has sheltered in a "safe room" that his sister has in her home.

For others, the sound of the air-raid siren means scrambling to find some concrete structure to hide under or a going to a communal bomb shelter in this city of 210,000 about 25 miles northeast of Gaza.

In between attacks, Poster said residents venture out only for the most essential needs.

"Today, I was in the supermarket, the siren sounded and everyone left," he said.

"I've seen it (Ashdod) as a bustling, vibrant community. Today, I see life at a standstill. It is a city under siege. This is a country on edge."

If not for Israel's well-organized civil defense system and its Iron Dome missile defense system developed with United States aid, the country's casualties from the last week of rocket attacks "would be horrendous," he said.

Avi Poster in 2006.(Photo: Ricky Rogers, The Tennessean file)

Instead, Poster, who is Jewish, says the focus of the international news media has been entirely on the suffering of the Palestinian civilians, victims of the collateral damage caused by Israeli air attacks against Hamas installations in Gaza. The U.S. government considers Gaza's Hamas government, born of an Islamic resistance group, a terrorist organization.

As of early Thursday in the Mideast, 161 Palestinians had been killed, including dozens of civilians. Hundreds have been wounded. Five Israelis have died, including at least three civilians, with dozens more wounded, according to The Associated Press.

"I ache at the thought," Poster said of the innocent Palestinians killed.

But Poster said those casualties are the fault of Hamas purposely stationing its assets close to civilians.

"It's almost like Israel gets penalized for having a good civil-defense system," he said.

Israel also has been made a villain for assassinating Hamas leader Ahmed Jabar last week, Poster said. What's forgotten are the many Hamas attacks against Israel that made that action necessary.

For Arabs, though, the past week has been the repeat of a familiar story: Israeli military might causing suffering among innocents and reminding Palestinians of their powerlessness against the Western countries who displaced them from their homeland in the 20th century, said James Zogby, head of the Arab-American Institute in Washington.

"Palestine is the wound in the heart that will not heal," Zogby said.

And for that reason, on the Arab street, the reaction to the Israeli air strikes "is the visceral one," he said.

It is anger that doesn't stop to consider any damage the Hamas rockets might be causing Israelis, Zogby said.

Hamas, he said, "has never figured out it needs to be a governing group rather than a resistance force." But it didn't "get into full swing" in attacking Israel until the assassination of Jabar.

Zogby called Hamas' rocket attacks stupid and criminal.

But he said Israel needs to learn that killing leaders is not going to heal the wound from Western powers denying Palestinians of self-rule as far back as World War I.